Contrary to the trope, not everyone learns to cook from their moms, tías, or abuelas. These creators want more people to embrace that.
It’s morning and Ale Regalado’s kitchen is fragrant with the smell of roasted dried chiles. The content creator stands in front of her stove where tomatillos blister on a comal, checking and turning them every few minutes until all sides are lightly blackened. She stops to pull one off and puts it in front of a tripod-mounted phone so her followers can get a better look at the tomatoes’ charred, sweating skin that will complete her recipe for tomatillo salsa roja.
“During the pandemic I decided to start documenting the food I was making for my family on TikTok as something to do,” Regalado says. “Then all of these people started commenting, saying they wanted the recipe and if I can share the recipe.”
The praise and comments inspired Regalado to start posting detailed, step-by-step recipes, and snippets of her personal life to both TikTok and Instagram Reels. Her bilingual reels have earned her a loyal following — she currently has more than 600,000 followers on TikTok and 325,000 on Instagram — who tune in for her nostalgic takes on simple yet delicious recipes like her viral albóndigas de res and alambre (a gooey mass of melted cheese with crumbles longaniza sausage, bacon, peppers, and onions). She encourages her followers to swap out ingredients and add their own touches: “That’s how it becomes your recipe and not mine,” she says. And in the process, she’s creating her own version of what a community can look like.
Food has long been a mode to preserve culture, traditions, and familial connections — to the point that many feel beholden to family recipes as a generational connector, a way to reinforce identity and belonging. For a lot of people, familial recipes — guided by the gustatory notes of abuelas cooking — are tied to the idea of authenticity and that there is a “correct” way of doing things.
But contrary to popular belief, recipes are not always passed down generationally and the notion of authenticity can be exclusionary. For some, there can be a disconnect driven by the effects and struggles associated with migration and acculturation, family structure, food access, economic insecurities, and balancing work and family. “Growing up my mom was both mom and dad,” Regalado says. “As a single mom, she had to work two jobs and was barely home so she never taught my sister and me how to cook.”
Through her Instagram account @ale.reeg, the 29-year-old creator is carving a space for home cooks of all skill levels to learn at their own pace. But perhaps more importantly, accounts like Regalado’s are dispelling the stigma and negative connotation within the Latine community for those that did not learn to cook from their moms, tías, or abuelas. They prove that their followers are not alone in their experience or any less connected to their roots or culture.
Recipe developer, content creator, and ethnographer Denise Favela, who specializes in Mexican and Mexican-American gastronomy, primarily highlights dishes from vintage Mexican cookbooks on her Instagram account @hechovistocomido “because I want to show that not everyone passes recipes through lineage,” she says. Both her parents come from the central Mexican state of Zacatecas: Her mom is from Juchipila and her dad is from Moyahua. “I go through these cookbooks and there are so many recipes I’ve never heard of through my mom — my mom just learned the basic recipes with ingredients that were particular to her region.”
Favela says her goal is to do away with the shame of how we attain our recipes. On her social media page, she shares recipes that range from regional dishes to vintage Easter platos inspired by Josefina Velázquez de León (Mexico’s first celebrity chef). They intentionally draw from a wide variety of Mexican ingredients to open the door for more intersectional conversations about Mexican foodways, history, and culture.
Reels documenting Favela’s travels through Mexico are anchored with questions and historical context; similarly, a trip to the produce section of a Mexican market invites her audience to share their culinary practices with quintoniles (amaranth greens): “What quelites do you enjoy?” Opening up her comments for discussion and giving her audience the opportunity to share their personal culinary traditions, terminology, and experiences. The result, she hopes, changes the narrative of how we share and receive recipes — reinforcing borrowed, learned, and interpreted food traditions.
Putting yourself out there on TikTok or Reels always comes with its share of audience expectations, and for creators in the food space, the idea of authenticity is something they have to contend with — including how they choose to engage (or not) with the term. Regalado intentionally doesn’t use the word “authentic” in her videos. “We all come from different parts of Mexico — we’re not all the same — there are so many variations of dishes, ingredients, and processes unique to each state,” she says. But she still gets criticism and haters, who post comments saying that’s not how “they make it” or “their family makes it,” an extension of the ongoing point of view that making something with different ingredients — in some cases, with ingredients that simply are not available where someone lives — would be inauthentic.
For Anna Rios, a registered dietitian whose Healthy Simple Yum Instagram account garners more than 270,000 followers, putting spins on the idea that “authentic” is an intentional act. Rios’s platform Healthy Simple Yum is committed to debunking mainstream notions of “healthy” foods, providing her followers with plant-based Mexican recipes (from menudo made from tripe-textured snow mushrooms to takes on traditional taquería meats like carnitas made from lion’s mane). “I want to make sure that people know that you don’t have to stop eating your cultural foods,” Rios says. “Comforting and nostalgic dishes deserve to stay in our lives and I love finding ways to make them more balanced to enjoy them often.”
Rios explains that a lot of her patients are hesitant to see a dietitian. “I’ve had them tell me, ‘I was scared to come see you because I thought you were gonna just tell me to stop eating tortillas,’” Rios says. “It all goes back to people being misinformed, and it’s a constant battle.”
It’s those encounters that inspired Rios to be the voice for the community she’s building online. The proud daughter of immigrant parents launched two bilingual e-books: Diabetes 101, which features 20 Mexican-focused recipes, meal plan ideas, and information on how to control or prevent diabetes and pre-diabetes; and Healthy, Simple, Mexican Recipes, with 30 plant-based recipes that include vegetable-loaded dishes like garbanzo nopal salad and rajas con crema, and hearty soups along with a full nutritional guide.
“These e-books are made with love for my Latino community and for all those who love Mexican food,” says Rios. “It’s the best feeling when I have people reach out and say, “‘Hey, I have high cholesterol but your recipes have brought me back to life and took me back to when I was 10 and I would have tacos de barbacoa with my grandpa.’”
For some, recipes are a way to reconnect with dishes they grew up eating. Bily Ruiz recently discovered Regalado’s page after their partner DMed them a recipe of the content creator’s aguachile. “I’m half black, half Mexican, and I was raised with my dad, who is Mexican, so I am very used to traditional Mexican foods,” says Ruiz, who grew up not caring to be in the kitchen. “For the last seven years, after moving out and living by myself, I’m finding myself wanting to learn how to make them. These foods raised me, and I want to be able to pass them down to my next family generation and friends too.”
Shared recipes not only reinforce our food practices but continually preserve them for future generations. One follower reminisced about the sopita his mother would make for him growing up, sharing that she passed away and he really missed her cooking. “He told me, ‘I watched your video and was able to make the dish and it tasted just like my mom’s,’” Regalado says. “I was in tears when I read his comment — he thanked me for the recipe and for keeping his mom’s memory alive.”
“At the end of the day, it’s still our heritage and our culture, and we have every right to reclaim it — even if it means we go back to books or other sources and people outside of our family to learn those foodways,” Favela says. Her most-viewed recipe is her atole de cempasúchil y naranja, a fragrant warm beverage that dates to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica and is commonly thickened with masa or pinole created for Día de los Muertos. The recipe was inspired by the atoles Denise enjoyed in Michoacán, where she learned how herbs and flowers could be used for flavor. “Recipes are really important to me, not just from my family,” Favela says. “Those that I’ve learned from others I see as primary sources that document our history.”
Cynthia Rebolledo is a freelance journalist in Orange County and Los Angeles covering food and culture.
Carina Guevara is a freelance illustrator based in Austin, Texas.
